im, in a thoughtful voice. "All I do remember is the
talk I had with two Englishmen who made the shack just before I went to
mend the line. I've been bothering about the fellows since."

"But why?"

Jim pondered languidly. If he kept on talking, Carrie might stop;
moreover, he wanted to formulate his puzzling thoughts and Carrie was
intelligent. He would like to see if he could make her understand.

"To begin with, they were people who had traveled and knew the world; I
know the North and some Canadian cities, but there I stop. The curious
thing was, they didn't talk like strangers; I felt I'd got their point
of view."

"Did you like them?"

"I don't know. I might have hit it with the younger man; he was frank
and I reckon he meant well, though you got a hint of something careless
and weak. There was more to the other fellow; you couldn't tell right
off if you'd trust him or not. But I'm afraid I make you tired."

"Oh, no," said Carrie, and was silent for a few moments.

She was frankly interested by Jim. For one thing, she had helped him
to get well and this gave her a motherly curiosity. Then his remarks
seemed to promise a clue to something she had found puzzling. In a
way, Jim was different from the young men she knew. The difference was
elusive, but she felt it now and then.

"Well," she said, "why don't you go on?"

"I'd met the men before," Jim resumed with a laugh. "Handed them their
lunch at the Montreal restaurant; they had a girl with them then. I'd
certainly not met a girl like that, but somehow I'd a notion I could
get in touch with her."

"What kind of a girl was she?" Carrie asked, with keener curiosity.

"The kind we call a looker, but it wasn't that. She was fine-drawn, if
you get me; clever and fastidious. I think fastidious is the word I
want. She belonged to clean, quiet places where everything is right.
That's what made my notion I understood her strange. You see, I have
had to struggle in the dust and mud."

Carrie imagined Jim had, so far, come through the struggle without
getting much hurt or soiled. He wore no obvious scars. She smiled,
and he resumed: "Perhaps the strangest thing was, they knew a place in
the Old Country my father sometimes talked about."

"Did you tell them your father knew the place?" Carrie asked, for the
clue was leading her on.

"I did not; they were strangers," Jim replied, and she saw he had a
reserve that was not common in Canada. "